Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84) is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of English literature, as a poet, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. This collected edition of his works - commissioned by the publisher within hours of Johnson's death, such was his celebrity - was published in 1787 in eleven volumes, edited by his literary executor, the musicologist Sir John Hawkins. Volume 8 contains The Idler, the 103 essays originally published by Johnson in the Universal Chronicle between 1758 and 1760, and published in one volume in 1761. These were more relaxed and rambling in style than those published in The Rambler, and were very popular. A common thread is the follies of the literary world - Johnson defines criticism as 'a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense'. Others touch on marriage, scholarship, and travelling.